Saturday, November 24, 2012

First, huge thank you to my amazing friend Holly for posting the amazing posts while I was adjusting to life. I'm not sure if she is done or not yet, so she may just put in some more surprise posts. Love you Holly.

Just because I have not been posting lately does not mean I don't have things to share.

Oh boy do I have things to share.

I am not going to share every poppy diaper nor every photo I take. That's just not who I am. Nor do I think you care about that stuff. This is also not going to turn into an "All about Mollie" blog. Unless its entertaining. I will likely share a lot, but I still have things to share aside from her. Well...at the moment I do not. But, I anticipate in the future I will have things to share that do not involve her.

For today, I will share a quick story.

When envisioning how Jeremy and I would parent our child, I never thought we would be "typical" parents. Turns out I was correct. In many ways we are typical, but in many other ways...we are downright crazy.

Enter...nursing charades. We have a newborn baby. She eats quite often. I get pretty bored sitting in her room for hours upon hours feeding her. And...my Facebook friends don't post nearly enough in the middle of the night.

So I need entertainment.

And since I am biologically intended to feed her. I have decided that Jeremy should pull his weight by entertaining me while I feed her.

So we came up with..Nursing Charades

I feed baby.

He acts out things for me to guess.

Yes, this game was devised at 3:00am during a state of total exhaustion.

But it's an excellent game. It makes me think we should invent a box set of games to play while feeding infants.

Game #1: Nursing Charades.

Time passes much faster when you are screaming ..."Forest Gump...No, Olympic Games...No, I got it! MC Hammer!"

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Happy Thanksgiving Eve to all the "Just Being Frankers." It's Holly again, here with the next in the Kara as a Mommy series.

Q1 - What is the best piece of advice you can give to Kara as a new mommy?

Q2 -Why is Kara going to be a GREAT mommy?

Here is what Kara's best friend Stacy had to say:Q1 -" I have been talking with Kara a LOT about this recently and what it comes down to is everybody has thoughts, tips, tricks and advice but what works for the Franks may not be what works for everyone else. So to Kara I would/have said follow your instincts they will always be right and know that there is no 1 way to do it. Kara, Jeremy and Mollie will create their own story on what works best for them as a family. So do what comes natural because that will be best, and don’t worry everything you are feeling is completely NORMAL!"Q2 - "Let’s be honest she has had a LOT of practice! I think Kara was born to be a mother, maybe not a stay at home mom but a fabulous, generous, endless loving, nurturing, kind, thoughtful and forgiving mother! She has “momed” most of us at some point in our friendship and is always there when you need her. Kara doesn’t have to try to be a great mom it comes natural, but I would guess even Kara will slow down just a little and become more patient as a mother. :)"

Feel free to play along in the comments with your additions and advice for Kara.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

My name is Holly and I am one of Kara's college friends. Since our lovely scribe is attending to the very cute new addition to her family, I have offered to babysit her blog in and out while the Frank family enjoys the first few weeks of being a family of five.

In prepping for my babysitting duties, I asked a few of Kara's closest friends to answer the following questions:

Q1 - What is the best piece of advice you can give to Kara as a new mommy?

Q2 -Why is Kara going to be a GREAT mommy?

Here is what Kara's good friend Rachel had to say:

Q1 -"Well, since I am not yet a Mommy myself(2 months to go!) I feel like I can't give her any real, practical, advice in this department yet. However, I can say that she should be kind to herself. I don't think any new Mom feels fully prepared for this new task. There will be many challenging moments ahead, she should trust her instincts and know that she has all of us(her family and friends) to support her, and learn along with her. It's going to be a crazy, incredible adventure!! And the great news is, we're not alone on it :-)"

Q2 - "This is easy! There are so many reasons! Because I don't know anyone who is more willing to go to the ends of the earth for the people she cares about. And I know that this quality will be taken to a whole new level with her own child. Bonus- she has one killer case of ADD which leads to endless activity, in other words...there will always be fun things going on at the Frank house. Oh! AND, she bakes some life-altering desserts....and I feel like a really great mommy always has cookie jar full of delicious-ness."

Stay tuned for more in our "Kara as a Mommy" series. Also, we know that Kara has been a great fur-baby mommy for quite some time: Punky and Stan please don't take offense to this title.

Sunday, November 11, 2012

As you all know, we love our dogs. A lot. Everyone said we would love them a lot less after the baby was here. People even said we might look at them like they were "wolves living in our house".

That is crap.

We are still absolutely head over heels in love with our dogs. And our baby. There's plenty of love to go around. And even more importantly, our dogs seem to love our baby. They have never seemed more relaxed or content (perhaps that is because we are always home now!)

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Hello everyone! As you saw...Mollie Cate Frank was born last Monday. We are delighted, exhausted, happy, emotional and mildly obsessed with our baby.

But, I think it's fitting that I start sharing some of the crazy stories that have already occurred. Because there have been many. Wow.

Here is the biggest lesson I have learned thus far. It is absoutely critical to maintain a sense of humor when raising a child. You cannot take anything too seriously (except obviously making sure they are cared for) and you just have to laugh. At least once per day we have found ourselves laying on the floor of her nursery, laughing until we cry. Laughter. It has been the critical medicine.

For starters...let me share the labor story. It's a good one.

October 28. My due date. One of my best friend's birthdays.

We could not plan to spend the day with her as we were not sure when the Franklet was going to arrive. So, we said we would play it by ear. On the morning of the 28th...no baby. No signs of baby's arrival. So...I called her and said...let's get this birthday party started. We met for brunch with our husbands, and had a lovely birthday brunch.

Debra and her husband went home after brunch to carve pumpkins and we parted ways for a bit as I wanted to walk around the lake in an attempt to 'walk the baby out'. We walked around one of the lakes...no baby.

We decided to meet up with Debra and Alex in the afternoon to resume Birthday celebrations at the Mall of America. I don't like the Mall of America. In fact, I hate it there. It's big, it's loud, it just freaks me out. But, turns out I really love my friend and would even go to the Mall of America for her.

She wanted to do some of the tourist attractions at the Mall because as locals, we just don't ever do those things there.

So we drove to the Mall and parked at Sears as it was the closest store to the first attraction, the "Mirror Maze". Yes, it is a maze of mirrors in the Mall of America.

We begin walking through the mirror maze and Jeremy starts panicking that my water will brake in the maze and he didn't know how we would get out. It is literally...a maze of mirrors. He plows ahead and tries to get us out of the maze as quickly as possible, extraordinarily concerned that I will birth a baby right in the middle of the maze.

We make it out of the maze, no signs of labor. Jeremy's mind is calmed. Well, as calmed as it ever is.

Slightly disoriented from the mirror maze, we begin walking through the Mall to our next attraction, Underwater World. On our way, we notice a Santa Claus in the Mall. Strange. It was not even Halloween yet. And then...we see another. And another. And by the time we get to the aquarium, we see about 50 Santas. Now, I was not feeling my best, and was disoriented from the mirror maze, and then confused by countless Santas. So, Debra walked up to one and asked why they were all here.

Turns out, there was a "Real Bearded Santa" convention at the Mall of America. Hundreds of Santas. Everywhere.

We walked through the aquarium, along with multitudes of Santas, saw the fish, and then parted ways from the Birthday girl. They were going to see a movie, and I was tired...and crabby because I was showing no signs of labor. And it was October 28. Franklet's due date. And I'm a timely person. So my baby should be too.

Jeremy and I walked back to the car, and I requested to walk the long way around (the Mall of America is almost 1 mile around each floor so I thought the additional walking would be good). We walked about a quarter of the way around the Mall, and something happened. I won't go into details but I thought I peed my pants.

We ran/walked/waddled back to the car as fast as possible, which was parked at the aforementioned, Sears. I wanted to go to the restroom before leaving to check out the situation.
I got in the bathroom and was so freaked out/scared/confused that I ripped my pants off myself.
Yes, you read that correctly, I ripped my $200 Joe's Maternity jeans off of myself.
From the waistband clear down to the knee.
Ripped my pants off myself.

Still confused about what had just occurred, I ran out of the bathroom, laughing, crying, and generally freaking out. And, holding my fleece jacket in front of myself to hide the situation.
The situation of the jeans ripped off myself.
Jeremy took one look at me and thought something horrible had happened as I was in an absolute panic.
I moved my fleece jacket away from my lap to reveal the pants situation and then Jeremy joined me in the hysteric laughter.
We literally ran as fast as a 9 month pregnant lady can run to the car.
And continued to freak out.
I still wasn't sure what exactly happened as it just wasn't like what happens in the movies.

We called the doctor in the car, and he informed me I should go straight to the hospital to see if it was in fact my water that broke. I politely said, "Ok" and then informed Jeremy that we were absolutely not going straight to the hospital.
A trip home to change my pants was a necessity.
We ran home, I changed out of the $200, torn in half jeans, and headed straight to the hospital.

The part about the real bearded Santas is fairly irrelevant to the story, but it was strange.
And of course there had to be a real bearded Santa convention.
At the Mall of America.
And of course my water broke after visiting underwater world.
And clearly I would tear my overpriced jeans off in Sears.
Of course.

And the rest is history. We went to the hospital. It was in fact my water that broke. 24 hours of labor ensued, and ended up in a c section, and then our beautiful baby girl was born.

About Kara Leigh Frank

I'm just a girl in my 20's trying to find my way in the world and leave it a little better than when I came. I love to laugh, hopefully that will become abundantly clear if you read my blog. I also firmly believe that life should not be taken too seriously, you could say that's my motto. Minnesota girl - enjoying life - trying to figure it all out.

Subscribe To Just Being Frank

What began as a wedding blog has evolved a bit. I began to write about my stumbles through wedding planning, and found that it had little to do with said topic. Rather, it was an outlet to describe some of the ridiculousness that tends to follow me. So, with that, and with the wedding behind us, I will charge on. If you will continue to read. If not, I will likely still charge on. Charging, writing, blogging, to myself. So read please!